Court Orders Trial of Douek; Finds Him Guilty of Bombing Knesset

An examining magistrate today ordered Moshe Douek, 25-year-old immigrant from Iraq, to stand trial within two weeks in the bombing of the Knesset which injured Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and four other Cabinet Ministers Magistrate Haimovich ordered the trial on charges of throwing a bomb with intent to cause grievous harm. Conviction carries a possible penalty of live imprisonment.

After prosecution witnesses completed testimony this morning, the young defendant submitted a plea in which he again admitted he threw the hand grenade in Knesset Oct 29 but in which he contended the act was not premeditated and asked deletion from the charge of the clause “with intent to cause grievous harm.”

He insisted he had only intended to attract attention to his grievances against certain Government officials by carrying the grenade into the Knesset. He said he had fully expected that the missile would be found on him. A “last-minute impulse” overwhelmed him, he told the court, and in a torment of internal conflict and panic, he lost his mental and physical balance at “the critical moment,” and threw the grenade.

Even under these circumstances, he declared he threw high and far in the direction of an unoccupied portion of the Knesset hall but the grenade “unfortunately” fell short He said he accepted full responsibility for the act and its consequences but repeated there had been no premeditation. The defendant added that he did not wish to take shelter behind the recorded fact that he had once been forcibly detained in a mental asylum.